Month: December 2015

How Much to Travel the World?

On December 26, 2015

People often ask us about the cost of travelling the world, especially as a family of four. Since we’re thinking 8-10 months of travel time, that must be really expensive right? I mean, it costs thousands just to take a trip to Disneyland for a week, so how can we afford to be away for months?

Well, it’s actually not as bad as you think. Obviously, if we’re going to be going to expensive parts of the world and going to expensive theme parks (U.S. and Disney, in this example), there’d be no way we could do it. But, most of the world isn’t like that — though sometimes travel agencies will make you think otherwise. Remember, we’ll be travelling to countries where the average monthly wage is $100-200, so why shouldn’t we be able to do it for something similar?

How much does it typically cost to live in our home for a month? Let’s say it’s about $4000 for accommodations, food, entertainment, utilities, transportation (gas, etc.) and so forth. Other families seem to have travelled for far less than that:

The Dennings of Discover. Share. Inspire. are driving a veggie-powered truck on the same route with 5 kids and just totalled their first month’s expenses on the road at less than $1,800.
The Vogel Family (with two growing boys) of Family on Bikes cycled from Alaska to Argentina and spent less than $75,000 dollars in 3 years ($2083 a month).
The Millers from the Edventure Project bicycled around Europe for a year with 4 kids for under $100 a day as well.
The six person Page family at Livin on the Road travel in an RV all over Australia for less than $100 a day ($3000 a month).
The Burns family of Our Travel Lifestyle recently moved to Penang, Malaysia and rented an amazing 4 bedroom home for only $350 dollars a month (which is a major cost for travelling).

What do they have in common? Going slow, being prepared and knowing when to make sacrifices.

We’re estimating that our travel will be about $60,000 ($6,000 a month) since we’ll be doing more flying than the above families. Though, to be frank, we haven’t done the nuts and bolts of the costs yet since it’s still some time away… Hopefully the Canadian dollar is doing a little better by then, though, otherwise our costs are going up!

Now, for a nice (albeit quickly edited) around-the-world video posted a few weeks ago:

The Fig Tree

By jbot

On December 17, 2015

In Books, General

Just a reminder that it’s never too late. Even the great Morgan Freeman didn’t get a big movie role until he was 52, with Driving Miss Daisy and Glory, and previously he had several careers from being in the military, being a dancer and acting in the theatre. And even though he never got any respect, Rodney Dangerfield didn’t get his first big movie role (Caddyshack) until he was 59, and sold aluminum siding before that.

Here’s a quote from Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar that hit home recently, saying that, yes, deciding a single future is hard but the sooner you do it, the sooner your life can begin (otherwise, you might lose everything):

“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn’t quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.” ― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

Click read more to see the full quote in beautiful comic form (by Zen Pencils).

The World is Not Falling Apart

By jbot

On December 2, 2015

In The World

In my (accidental) ongoing series of posts talking about safety and security of the world, I’d like to bring up a new article by Slate entitled The World is Not Falling Apart: Never mind the headlines. We’ve never lived in such peaceful times. The article begins with the popular notion that the world is going crazy (something I hear constantly):

It’s a good time to be a pessimist. ISIS, Crimea, Donetsk, Gaza, Burma, Ebola, school shootings, campus rapes, wife-beating athletes, lethal cops—who can avoid the feeling that things fall apart, the center cannot hold?

But is the centre holding? Is the world safe? As Bill Clinton says, “Follow the trend lines, not the headlines.” In other words, don’t look at individual news reports that can be discussing something a thousand miles away — and continue discussing it until the next disaster happens. Rather, look at the statistics and see where the trend lines are heading.

As Slate discusses, the trends for nearly all violence has gone down dramatically over the last few decades. Violent acts like homicide, rape, child abuse has gone way down. If you take a look at the big violence happening around the world — mass killings, genocides, etc. — you’ll see that the past ten to twenty years has seen a major decline. Armed conflicts and wars has dropped significantly since the early 90s.

Slate: Rate of Battle Deaths in Armed Conflicts

The world is not falling apart. We just need to use an evidence-based mind set and look at the facts and not the headlines. Even though ISIS and various (historically small) civil wars have taken over the 24 hours news channels, things are getting better out there. That doesn’t mean violence will some day end (we aren’t heading towards a singularity of peacefulness, sorry), but I hope this article allows you stop being fearful about travelling the beautiful world on which we live.